Picture This

Our Picture This! Assignment this month was "The Big Landscape: Mountain Views." Readers responded with photos made from East to West with some of the most beautiful peaks in our land, and with some from overseas as well. Of course, folks from out West consider Eastern mountains not much more than foothills, but any feature that rises above the horizon counts in our...

Our Picture This! assignment for this month was "Wavin' Old Glory," and readers responded with a host of images that speak to the profound connection we all have with this powerful symbol. Many of the images spoke to the sacrifices of our men and women who have served in defense of our country, something that cannot but remind us of our brave troops serving...

Our Picture This! assignment this month was Outdoor Sports, and readers responded with a host of great shots from a near-Olympic-size field that included baseball, running, biking, and rodeo. Judging from these photos it's clear that readers have their eye on the ball and know how to grab those "peak of the action" shots.

This month's Picture This! assignment was Patterns in Nature. Readers responded with a glorious selection of design, form, and color derived from plants, rocks, and animals. While the debate over so-called "Intelligent Design" and evolution may stir some to emotional rhetoric, there's some respite in simply marveling at and enjoying the visual pleasures...

Light is a dancer. Given an opportunity to bounce around, it will. Given a surface, it will play upon it. Given the right time of day, it will glance around corners and capture scenes that would otherwise be unseen. The subject of our Picture This! for this month was reflections, and readers responded with some of the most fascinating photographs we've seen for quite a...

This month's Picture This! assignment, Found Montage, will not be running. The photographs submitted for Picture This! were sent from our collection point to review a few days before Hurricane Katrina struck and never arrived for review. After extensive efforts at tracing the review package we can only conclude that the package was lost within the chaos of the storm and its...

When subjects fall within their own shadows, when an overcast sky makes color dull, or when we need to add a slight kick of light to more brightly illuminate what's before us, fill flash comes to the rescue. It's called "fill" because it is a supplementary light source, but we like the nickname "sunshine synchro" even better. Call it what you...

Our Picture This! assignment for this month was Background Blur, creating a sense of dimension in the photograph by playing a sharp foreground subject off against a blurry, or unsharp background. Readers sent in a wide variety of subjects, from flowers to statues to birds and carnival rides, all using this time-honored technique. Many used telephoto lenses to enhance the shallow...

Our Picture This! assignment this month was panoramas, and readers responded with a host of images made with panoramic cameras, cropped large format and a goodly number of stitched images, multiple shots made with film and digital cameras brought together with various software programs. It strikes us that the panoramic "genre" is back with more power and grace than...

Telephoto lenses are great for bringing distant objects closer and giving you "tunnel vision" that isolates parts of your personal field of view. They also have an added benefit, a visual trick most commonly called the "stacking effect," where a series of subjects each distant from one another are brought in much closer visual contact. This compression of...

Judging from the amazing images we received from readers this month the art of the wall mural is alive and well and thriving in the US and abroad. The creativity of the artists, and the unique way in which the wall murals were photographed, is a great source of inspiration. We especially liked it when readers submitted images that included the context of the mural, or some ironic...

Every color has an association, and each of us reacts to hues and their shadings in different ways. This month's Picture This! assignment was Blue Moods, and readers sent us in an amazing set of images that conveyed the range of emotions this most evocative color creates. While many relied on the cold side of this color in winter scenes, others found their blue mood in the...

Our Picture This! assignment this month was "made in the shade"; pictures made under overcast sky, dark forest canopies, or anywhere the bright sun doesn't shine. Ask a wedding photographer, for example, his or her preference for a wedding day's shoot and generally they'll tell you one with a good cloud cover, even though the bride and groom might be...

There's an adage in photography that if you're not sure how to deal with the light just turn 90Þ from the source and shoot away, taking advantage of the way light shapes the subject as it streaks along a plane. Our assignment for Picture This! was directional light, and readers responded with images that played with light in many imaginative ways. As these...

Our Picture This! assignment this month was Sunrise/Sunset and we received a year's worth of risings and settings from our very talented readers. The images showed a wide range of subjects and locations, from Alaska to the coast of Maine, with rainbows and the dazzling light as it moved in and around everything from peaceful harbors to the great cities of our land.